Union and Confederate
armies clashed near the Morgan houses in early August. Sarah's home was severely damaged, not from
shelling but from vandalism by the victorious Yankees. The women left the Asylum and moved from
friend's house to friend's house, landing at a plantation twenty
miles north of Baton Rouge.
At the end of August sister Miriam returned from a trip home to their battered
neighborhood.

Andrew D.Lytle

Baton Rouge with the State Capitol in the distance

August 25, 1862 Linwood, East Feliciana
Parish

"She says when she entered
[our] house, she burst into tears at the desolation. It was one scene of ruin.
Libraries emptied, china smashed, sideboards split open with axes, three cedar
chests cut open, plundered, and set up on end; all parlor ornaments carried
off…. They entered my room, broke that fine mirror for sport, pulled down the
rods from the bed and with them pulverized my toilet set, taking all Lydia's
china ornaments I had packed in the wash-stand. The debris filled my basin and
ornamented my bed. My desk was broken open. Over it was spread all my letters,
and private papers, a diary I kept when twelve years old, and sundry 'tokens of
dried roses, etc,' which must have been very
funny, them all being labeled with the donor's name and the occasion. Fool! how
I writhe when I think of all they saw…Lilly's sewing-machine had disappeared;
but as mother's was too heavy to move, they merely smashed the needles."

Library of Congress

Sewing machines were considered the machinery of war because uniforms were sewed on them. Union soldiers often destroyed machines when they came upon them. Breaking the needles was enough. With the blockade Southerners had a hard time getting replacements.